Homelessness is on the rise in Austin, Texas. In 2018, more than 7,000 people experienced homeless in Austin, according to the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition (ECHO). On any given day there are over 2,000 individuals living in shelters or unsheltered — a number that’s risen nearly 5% between 2018 and 2019.
But building a community can play an important role in supporting individuals experiencing homelessness. Since 1990, Art from the Streets has been doing exactly that.
The organization helps the housing insecure find a greater sense of stability through art. Three times a week, individuals gather at a local Austin church where they can paint for free during an open studio session. There, artists have a refuge from life on the streets while also building a greater sense of community.
“We create a place of safety for people who are on the street to be able to come inside to just be, and be supported to create,” co-founder Heloise Gold told NationSwell. “I don’t refer to this as ‘art therapy’ per se, but it is very therapeutic.”
Art from the Streets also helps its artists get paid for their work. For the past 27 years, it’s hosted an end-of-year show and sale where artists are able to sell their original pieces for 95% of the profits. In more recent years, Art from the Streets has opened an online store to sell reprints and merchandise. Artists earn 60% of the proceeds from reprints, while the remaining 40% goes to support the organization.
Though the sale of artwork is important, Gold maintains that it’s the sense of community instilled that drives Art from the Streets’ mission.
“The heart of the program and what I was wanting in the beginning, that essence is still apart of this program,” said Gold. “We really want people to be apart of the community and to be influenced by each other.”
More: This Website Empowers People in Need to Make Art — and Sell It for Thousands of Dollars
Tag: ending homelessness
These Mobile Showers for the Homeless Offer Much More Than Hot Water
In Jersey City, New Jersey, weekday mornings are bustling at the Journal Square station. People rush in and out of trains and across platforms; most are coming from or going to New York City, commuting to work or dropping children off at daycare.
But a few people near the Journal Square station won’t be stepping onto a train. Instead, they’re stepping into a mobile shower. They’ll be met with soap, warm water and clean towels.
This month, the City of Jersey City launched a pilot program offering free access to showers, bathrooms and a new set of clothes to anyone in need. Many of the people visiting these showers are experiencing homelessness; after their shower, they have the opportunity to talk to coordinators on site who can refer them to additional resources.
A hot shower creates a launching point to connect people with what they need, whether it’s mental health support, checking in with a case manager or receiving SNAP or Medicaid benefits.
Mayor Steven Fulop said that the program goes beyond cleanliness. The goal is to build trust.
“We started to think about how to use the resources — simple things like a shower — as a conduit to building a bond and trust and a larger conversation to steer people towards better services,” Fulop told NationSwell.
The pilot program was created after a series of meetings between citizens and the mayor’s Quality of Life Task Force, a group of leaders from across city departments involved with issues pertaining to the public. One common concern from Journal Square business owners and residents was sanitation in and around the station.
“This isn’t a police issue, this isn’t a prosecution issue … this is really a health and human services issue,” Stacey Flanagan, the director for Health and Human Services of Jersey City told NationSwell.
For a solution, the city turned to a similar one implemented after Hurricane Sandy. To help with recovery from the superstorm’s impact, Jersey City used grant funds to purchase a mobile shower unit. For years, the showers sat unused. Today, the unit has a new purpose. It serves about five people every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.
Jersey City isn’t the first place to implement mobile showers. In Oregon’s Washington County, Community Connection, a coalition of nonprofits, finished building a mobile shower unit earlier this month. The City of San Antonio, California, is currently in discussions to purchase a $58,000 mobile shower.
Since 2014, the nonprofit Lava Mae has been driving throughout San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland serving hundreds of people every week. In California, where there are thousands of individuals facing homelessness and few public showers, the ability to get clean is a challenge.
“Here we are in this first-world country, in a super affluent city, and still, we have people who don’t have access to water and sanitation,” the founder, Doneice Sandoval, told NationSwell.
Flanagan noted that “we’re not promising a shower’s going to change your whole life,” but that being clean can create a sense of dignity. It can give people the courage to interact with business owners, apply for jobs and move through the world without fear of judgment. One man left saying he “felt like a million bucks,” she said.
Currently, the project is projected to run throughout the rest of the year. Afterward, the city will assess the best location and times to offer showers.
Jersey City is part of Hudson County, where homelessness has been on a steady rise over the last three years. A 2019 study conducted by the nonprofit Monarch Housing Associates found a 3% increase — approximately 30 individuals — in the number of people experiencing homelessness from January 2018 to January 2019.
Jobs and affordable housing were among the top causes of homelessness, which gives insight into areas of improvement for Hudson County.
“There are organizations doing great work around homelessness, but there are some things that fall through the cracks,” said Flanagan.
Jersey City also has plans to open a shelter next year that would provide rooms for 150 individuals, with space for 14 people living with HIV/AIDS and six permanent homes.
“I think the system has failed these people in many different ways,” Fulop said. “So doing a simple gesture that most people take for granted on a daily basis, can really go a long way.”
More: Showers and Toilet on Wheels Give Homeless a Clean Slate
This Group’s Approach to Ending the Jail-Homelessness Cycle May Actually Make a Big Difference.
On any given night, approximately 40% of San Francisco’s jail population identifies as homeless. Many of these vulnerable individuals will face jail time again after their release. A fraction will cycle in and out of the criminal justice system anywhere, between eight and 23 times in a single year.
“Arrest is not an inevitable result of homelessness,” said Jake Segal, vice president of advisory services at Social Finance, a nonprofit that mobilizes capital across the public and private sectors to improve social outcomes. “But stable housing with appropriate support can provide a strong buffer against future jail stays.”
If people have access to assistance immediately after their release — if they’re connected to housing support services and a case manager, for example — they’re less likely to end up incarcerated for another offense. Knowing that, last year Social Finance partnered with the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department and Tipping Point Community, a local philanthropic funder, to pilot a program that refers inmates to housing and other social services upon their release.
“Social Finance got its start working in criminal justice. Increasingly, much of our work focuses on homelessness, and this project is a natural intersection of the two,” Segal said of the San Francisco Jail Discharge Planning Project.
Much research was needed before the program could launch and for the Sheriff’s Department, time was of the essence. “We were building the airplane as we were flying it,” said Ali Riker, director of programs for the Sheriff’s Department. “We wanted to get [the program] up and running because there was such an overwhelming need, but the biggest question we had was, ‘Discharge to what?’ It’s fine to tell people, ‘This is where the shelters are,’ but we really needed more resources to offer, particularly for those familiar faces coming in and out of our jail cells.”
To help them assess and learn from other jail-discharge programs across the country, Social Finance turned to GLG. The world’s largest knowledge marketplace, GLG connects professionals from across sectors with more than 700,000 subject-matter experts — a vast network of expertise representing nearly every industry, market, and issue area. By enlisting GLG’s help, Social Finance was able to quickly and accurately examine trends and best practices among discharge and reentry programs.
“We wanted to find programs that focused on comprehensive, community-based collaborations with the intention of driving impact on recidivism and housing,” Segal said.
GLG tapped into its extensive database to identify the right experts, including former prison officials, community leaders and policy experts, and arranged phone calls with each within 48 hours.
Because of GLG, “we were able to get a more comprehensive understanding of the key factors we needed [to focus on] for the program,” said Segal.
For example, it can be surprisingly difficult to identify the most frequently arrested inmates within the jail system and effectively intervene. Their jail stays may be short — the result of minor violations — and they may be released in the dark of night. With the guidance and advice of GLG’s experts, the Sheriff’s Department and Social Finance set up a database to better locate those who need help and ensure they’re matched with high-quality housing and support services the moment they leave jail.
Segal and his team learned other best practices too, such as the importance of collaboration between jail staff and community partners; robust screening and assessment criteria of a client’s needs; and giving case managers a key role.
“Successful reentry starts with risk assessment while the client is still in custody,” said Segal, adding that caseworkers are really the “glue” of the project. “They can make sure vulnerable people get to where they need to go.”
One year after its launch, the San Francisco Jail Discharge Planning Project has helped some 200 people transition more smoothly from jail. If GLG hadn’t played a part, “we wouldn’t have had the same knowledge about what makes a great program,” Segal said.
Citing their positive experience, Segal and his team at Social Finance have already decided to draw on GLG’s experts for help with future projects. “It’s become an incredibly important part of our research,” he said.
This article was paid for and produced in partnership with GLG. GLG Social Impact delivers the power of GLG’s platform to the social sector.
Looking for a Brilliant Way to Help the Homeless? Build One of These Walls
Holly Jackson believes in the power of small things, like the impact kind words can have on a stranger or the way a $2 bottle of shampoo can afford something as invaluable as human dignity.
Over the past year, the Cleveland resident watched 26,000 people benefit from small things. Each small thing was attached to a Wall of Love.
To a passerby, these walls might seem like an obscure art project: Zip-tied to fences across Ohio are Ziploc bags full of everything from hats and hand warmers to school supplies and sunscreen. But near each wall is a sign that reads, “Please take what you need. Leave the rest for others. Pay it forward when you can.”
They’re put together by the nonprofit Walls of Love, which provides basic necessities to people experiencing homelessness. The walls are assembled by Jackson and volunteers who gather materials, bag them and find a safe, willing location to post the items
A key to the walls’ success is the role of anonymity. Jackson, who experienced homelessness 28 years ago when she left an abusive relationship, is familiar with the stigmas of asking for help. When she left her home pregnant with nothing, she learned quickly that because she had a job, she didn’t qualify for financial assistance. Jackson recalled how hard it was to ask for help and how it was even harder to not receive it.
With the Walls of Love, there are no criteria or requirements to getting what you need.
Beyond supplying basic necessities, the walls also serve as a reminder that “you’re not just some random person. Somebody out there loves you,” Jackson told NationSwell.
While Jackson was sleeping on the streets and in shelters, she felt like she was just a number.
“Whether you’re a number for food stamps or a number for medical or a number for waiting in line for the soup kitchen or a number to get into a bed at night, you’re just a number,” she said. “And I wanted people to not feel that way.”
The idea for Walls of Love came when Jackson saw a family last October with no hats, no gloves, no coats, no socks and wearing flip flops. Jackson decided to do something to help people in similar situations.
“I had wished there was just a magic wall where people could get anything that they needed and there was no stigma, no judgment,” Jackson recalled.
Then she realized she can build that wall. She started fundraising, collecting materials and volunteers. The first wall was built outside the police department in Lorain, Ohio.
One wall became two, which became a dozen. Nearly a year later, and Walls of Love has built over 195 walls and helped 26,000 people. On Nov. 9, to celebrate one year, Jackson and a team of volunteers will build 25 walls all in the same day.
Jackson, who has a full-time job outside of Walls of Love, plans to take the momentum into this upcoming year. Her target goal is 500 walls across the country and constructing 216 in a single day (216 is Cleveland’s area code).
Right now, a majority of the walls function as “pop-up walls,” meaning that once all the items are gone that wall is done. But Jackson’s goal is to work with groups to create sustainable walls that are continuously restocked as the seasons change.
But either way, she said, “anybody that we can help, even if it’s just one time, is better than not helping anyone at all.”
Walls of Love is currently in need of both volunteers and donations. If you’re interested in starting a wall in your community, email [email protected].
More: This Church Found a Brilliant Way to Help Homeless People, and It All Starts With a Mailbox
This Church Found a Brilliant Way to Help Homeless People, and It All Starts with a Mailbox
When people think of home, they often focus on what’s inside. But there’s a privilege in having a place to live that’s often forgotten: having a permanent address.
For people experiencing homelessness, an address can be a gateway to gaining that home. Without an address, an individual can’t receive disability benefits, social security payments or veteran’s benefits. They can’t open a bank account, which is often needed to collect earnings from employers. They can’t receive notifications about newly available affordable housing, messages from their children’s school or correspondence from family members.
In other words, the resources that homeless people need require an address, but in order to have an address — a home, apartment or place to sleep — the individual needs to first obtain those resources.
This vicious cycle has come to be known as the Postal Paradox — and leaders at Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in San Jose, California, saw an opportunity to disrupt it.
In 1983, the church opened up its reception office so that people experiencing homelessness could have a permanent address to receive mail and use when applying to jobs. Today, the program is called The Window.
“[The Window] is how we keep them connected,” Sharon Miller, the director of Cathedral Social Ministries at Catholic Charities, told NationSwell. “It’s just one small little layer of making a significant difference in someone’s life who doesn’t have a permanent residence.”
Throughout the day about 150 people, typically those recently released from the justice system or those experiencing homelessness, stop by the walk-up counter to collect any mail they might have received. Behind the glass panel is a tiny room with rows of mail slots, boxes of sandwiches and workers bustling around.
You’ll find people leaving The Window with bundles of mail. You’ll also find people walking away with a saran-wrapped sandwich or carrying a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of shampoo or a stick of deodorant.
“It’s just making sure that they have some real simple items, that are life-saving items,” Miller said.
Though it was initially conceived to serve as a permanent address, The Window has since evolved, offering toiletries, food and access to services to those who need it — services like referring individuals to shelters, permanent housing or employment opportunities. The Cathedral Office of Social Ministry also runs a free healthcare clinic, which is accessed through The WIndow.
“[The Window] really did grow over the years, and now we’re in a state of crisis with homelessness,” Miller explained.
Homelessness in San Jose is on the rise — up 42% since 2017. So a resource like The Window is essential to connecting individuals to permanent housing. And although San Jose’s homeless population has increased, Miller said registration rates at the Window are beginning to plateau.
Miller estimates that about 15 new people register with The Window every week and another 15 find permanent housing, so The Window’s total population has consistently hovered around 920.
Miller is constantly reminded of why she does this work. She’ll be flagged walking down the street by people she used to help. “Someone will come up and say, ‘Sharon, Sharon, I still have my housing because of what you provided.” And those are the memories that stick.
So even as homeless rates rise, Miller stays positive.
“All of us know what we need to do to solve this problem,” she said. “It just isn’t happening quick enough.”
It may seem like just a walk-up window, but inside are connections and opportunities for so much more.
More: These Parking Lots Give Homeless People a Safe Place to Sleep for the Night
This Yellow Bus Isn’t Taking Children to School — It’s Taking Families Off of Streets
A school bus is typically full of eager, excited kids.
But for the Flood family, a school bus is home. It’s a place full of the essentials: food, hot water, clothes and a place to rest.
During the summer of 2018, David Flood, who was working as a substitute teacher and studying for his master’s, had to quit his job. He needed to take care of his three kids and his wife, Jennifer Flood, who was too sick to work. Rent payments, student loans and hospital bills piled up, and the family was evicted from their home. They were left with only their car and a tent to sleep in.
“We didn’t think it would happen to us—but it did,” David Flood told Julie Atkins, the founder of Vehicles for Changes. “It’s not just the uneducated. I’m finishing my master’s degree. I had nowhere to work, so the skoolie enables me to get it done. I’m so relieved.”
In November 2018, their precarious sleeping situation changed, thanks to Vehicles for Changes, a nonprofit that outfits retired school buses for families experiencing homelessness.
The family moved into a “skoolie,” a term for a bus converted into a home. After being cramped in their car, the family had a chance to stretch out for the first time in months.
Vehicles for Changes launched in May 2018 by Julie Atkins, a journalist covering homelessness in Oregon and up and down the West Coast.
Oregon, like the majority of the United States, has seen its homeless population rise over the past few years. More people are living on the streets, in encampments and in their cars. During the 2016-2017 school year, nearly 23,000 Oregonian students experienced homelessness, according to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness.
There are a variety of reasons why more families and individuals end up without a place to rest their heads. The cost of living has risen dramatically while wages haven’t, shifts in the economy can create gaps in job opportunities and sky-high medical bills, even with health insurance, can send a family spiraling into debt.
Atkins started investigating solutions outside of homeless shelters and tiny homes, which each have their strengths and weaknesses
“We wanted to create a home that would last 30 years, that would truly be mobile and would take homelessness off the table for a child for the rest of their childhood,” Atkins told NationSwell.
She found a solution inside of a retired school bus.
“There are a lot of reasons why buses just make for a great canvas,” she said.
School buses go through rigorous safety inspections, have features like windows and roof exits and, at 240 square feet, provide a decent living space. The biggest bonus is that they’re drivable.
If a family can pack up and move without leaving their home behind, they’re able to find more job opportunities, Atkins explained. Low-income families often rely on temporary jobs, which means they move more frequently. But the costs of moving from place to place frequently can quickly drain a family’s savings; a bus provides more flexibility without the financial burden.
However, moving has its drawbacks. Children who switch schools are more likely to disengage and fall behind. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found a link between moving frequently as a child and higher risks of criminality, suicide and drug abuse. But many homeless children have already moved multiple times. It’s possible that not having to start over with a new living space holds an added benefit.
After writing a blog about her idea to convert buses into homes, a reader offered to fund Atkins’ nonprofit for the next five years, donating $25,000 each year. So, she got to work.
Each home costs about $25,000 to buy and build. Atkins works with a contractor to turn the buses into skoolies, adding a full kitchen, bunk bed, master bedroom and living space to each.
From there, the bus is leased out to a family, for free, for one year. Atkins will help the family find a place to park the bus, whether in an RV park, a designated safe parking lot or on private land. If the family wants to keep living on the bus, they have the chance to purchase it using a sliding scale, interest-free payment plan through the nonprofit.
For the Flood family, their bus has been life-changing. As they approach one year of living in their skoolie, they’re hoping to buy it, Atkins said. The family has found a community at the Jackson Wellsprings RV park. Since moving in, the three children have made friends, grown an herb garden and gained a sense of permanency. “Their life has changed dramatically as a result of this,” Atkins said.
“It made the little money we had stronger,” David told People. “It took the stress off of our lives. It allows us to breathe for a moment.”
Atkins understands bus life might not be for everyone. For some, it can act as a safe stepping stone back to living in a house or apartment. For others, if the space is manageable, it could serve as a permanent home.
Vehicles for Changes is currently finishing up its second bus and accepting applicants. It already has a third bus ready to be refurbished, but the nonprofit is in need of financial support.
Their goal is to finish two additional buses by the end of this year and complete five in 2020. Atkins said she also hopes to add solar panels to the roof to decrease energy costs and make the homes carbon neutral.
She sees buses as one simple solution to ending homelessness and hopes to see other communities replicating her work so more families can get off the streets.
“We know the buses exist. We know the need exists. We know that the money, $25,000 for a house, is a lot cheaper than any other option that anyone else has come up with,” she said. ”The goal is that every community out there who sees this as viable jumps in and starts this process themselves.”
More: These Austin Tiny Homes Could House 40% of the City’s Chronically Homeless Population
Fighting Homelessness Among Female Vets Takes a Special Approach
Approximately 4,300 women veterans are homeless at any given time, according to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. When Cindy Seymour, a former Air Force sergeant, heard that number, she knew she had to do something to help her sisters-in-arms.
In 2011, Seymour founded Serenity for Women, an organization that works to improve the lives of women transitioning from the military into civilian life. The Syracuse, New York-based nonprofit does this by building transitional “tiny” homes for homeless female veterans and also connecting them with local support services.
An estimated 1.4 million veterans are at risk of becoming homeless, and women vets make up ten percent of the homeless veteran population, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Job support and financial assistance are both critical in reducing homeless veteran populations. But women vets have additional needs that require more nuanced solutions.
“Women veterans absolutely require a different approach of outreach and support than their male counterparts,” says Anna Stormer with the Women Veterans Center in Philadelphia, which reached “functional zero,” or when homelessness is essentially eradicated among veterans, in 2015. Women face a number of unique barriers when accessing services, Stormer says. “A lot of women truly are unaware of the benefits for which they qualify.”
The Women Veterans Center, for example, uses a “trauma informed” approach to help empower female veterans in making long-term housing decisions. This method addresses issues that impact many female vets, like post-traumatic stress disorder. The center also features play areas to occupy kids while their mothers are with social services.
To be connected with [the community] I think is important, and to have an organization that is vet-specific,” says Andrew McCawley, president and CEO of the New England Center and Home for Veterans (NECHV).
With financing from Citi, NECHV created a designated floor for women and expanded its mental healthcare facilities.
NECHV’s program is one of a number of initiatives across the country with the goal of helping homeless veterans. The Bring Them Homes initiative, run by the LISC-National Equity Fund (NEF) and supported by Citi Community Development, gives pre-development grants to nonprofits that provide supportive housing to homeless veterans. So far, Bring Them Homes has created nearly 4,000 housing units, and also offers a variety of support services to vets in need.
“The greatest need is with single adults, and the percentages have been increasing with women,” says Debbie Burkart, vice president of supportive housing for NEF. “These vets deserve special attention. They have selflessly given to this country and then they’ve come back and, in some cases, we haven’t done enough to take care of them. They shouldn’t end up on the street.”
Much like Bring Them Homes, the tiny homes program in Syracuse embeds supportive services into the housing process. Once construction on the tiny homes is finished, the only thing the women need to bring is themselves — and a willingness to take part in programs that help them secure jobs and receive therapy.
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This article is paid for and produced in collaboration with Citi. Through Citi Salutes, Citi collaborates with veteran service organizations and leading veteran champions to support and empower veterans, service members and their families. This is the sixth installment in a series focusing on solutions for veterans and military families in the areas of housing, financial resilience, military transition and employment.
When It Comes to Helping Homeless Vets, Could Thinking Small Be The Answer?
You’d think Joseph Gotesman would have his hands full with studying. After all, he’s a 22-year-old second-year medical student at Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
But Gotesman finds the time to lead the small organization VetConnect that seeks out homeless veterans in the Bronx and keeps in touch with them until they find stable housing.
Since January, Gotesman and a handful of volunteers have been walking the streets, looking for homeless people holding cardboard signs saying they’re vets or just asking the people if they’ve served. When they find a homeless soldier, VetConnect works to verify his or her status and begins the process of applying for benefits and finding assistance programs.
So far, VetConnect has helped five veterans attain stable housing and assisted several others find employment.
Jacow W. Sotak of the New York Times asked Chris Miller of the New York City Department of Homeless Services whether such a small-scale effort helps given the magnitude of the city’s homelessness problem. It does, says Miller. “Many of our partners started out as small, neighborhood-focused organizations. We value every effort, however small, to reach out to a homeless man or woman and connect them to services. It makes a difference.”
Gotesman tells Sotak that he believes the strength of VetConnect is its focused, local nature. “You can’t get more local than community members reaching out to their own. And as we grow, it will be community members reaching out to their own as well. You won’t see me at a VetConnect excursion in an L.A. or a Boston community excursion.”
Still, Gotesman recognizes the VetConnect model could work well elsewhere, so he’s helping people in other states organize their own teams. “Helping a veteran is not a quick, simple feat,” he tells Sotak in an email. “It takes time and relationship and trust building.”
Having a local team of dedicated volunteers who can win the trust of homeless vets and keep checking on them until their situation improves is essential. And clearly, so is having some high-achieving millennials willing to pitch in.
MORE: This Veteran Literally Searches Through Shrubbery for Homeless Soldiers Needing Assistance
The New York Town Putting Roofs Over 60 Vets Heads
Long Island took a big step forward toward its goal of eliminating veteran homelessness when Liberty Village, a brand new housing complex in Amityville, N.Y., welcomed its first residents on Sept. 29.
According to the Long Island Report, 152,000 veterans live on Long Island and 5,500 of them are homeless, says John Jarvis of the nonprofit Mental Health Association. With all the apartments occupied, Liberty Village reduces the number of homeless vets by 60.
The Medford, N.Y.-based nonprofit Concern for Independent Living raised $25 million in five months to bring Liberty Village to fruition. The complex features green lawns and white picket fences, and each unit contains four apartments that come complete with granite countertops, furniture and kitchen supplies.
The housing complex has been a lifesaver for several of the vets who moved in about a month ago.
Robert Veney, a 54-year-old Marine Corps veteran suffering PTSD, fell into homelessness when his mother died and he could no longer afford to pay the $2,200 monthly mortgage on her house. He slept in his car or on a friend’s couch and hid his homelessness from his children. But now he can welcome them at his new apartment.
Nat Conigiliaro, an 83-year-old Korean War veteran, was moved to tears when he spoke to the Long Island Report at the grand opening. “I want to dig a deep hole and I want to throw in all the horrors of homelessness, all the depression, all the hurt, and I want to bury it, never to be resurrected again,” he says. “[The apartment] It’s the Garden of Eden, and best of all, it’s home. Can’t thank them enough.”
Ralph Fasano, the executive director of Concern for Independent Living, says, “The opening of Amityville has to be one of the most rewarding things I have ever done. To see people who were going to die homeless, and at the end of their life, to have some joy and some peace.”
In cities across the country, nonprofits and government agencies are making bold moves to alleviate veteran homelessness — bringing the prospect for eradicating it closer than ever.
MORE: Buy A T-Shirt, Help A Veteran
The Win-Win Solution for Baltimore’s Housing Crisis
Let’s examine Baltimore’s two big plights. First: The city’s housing crisis has resulted in 16,000 vacant homes, and second, on any given night, 3,000 people will experience homelessness.
For the sake of human dignity, isn’t the answer to both problems to simply put them together? Why can’t these empty homes be turned into housing for the homeless?
That’s the mission of Housing Our Neighbors, a group that’s part of the Housing Is A Human Right Roundtable organization that’s made up of anti-homelessness advocates. As the Atlantic reports, the Roundtable is hoping to “create a community land trust — a non-profit that will hold the title to the land in order to make it permanently affordable.” The same approach has worked to protect low-income residents from gentrification in places like Austin, Texas; Albany, Ga.; and Albuquerque, N.M., the publication says.
MORE: The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities
“Why do we live in a city with tens of thousands of vacant homes and still have people who are homeless?” Father Ty Hullinger of St. Anthony of Padua, a local Roman Catholic Church, says in the Roundtable video below. “We have parishioners who have lost their homes to foreclosure. These are families that work hard to keep their homes but found themselves, like many American families, unable to get out from under the debt [from] financing their homes.”
Baltimore’s just a smaller example of what’s happening throughout the United States. As Amnesty International wrote in a blog post following the last government census, “approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans…at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.”
Here at NationSwell, we’ve mentioned several times how the idea of providing “housing first” has taken off in Utah, a state where chronic homelessness has dropped 74 percent over the past eight years and is on track to become eradicated by 2015. Similar initiatives are also working in Atlanta and Nashville. (It’s even saving taxpayers’ money.)
Give a homeless person a safe shelter and an address, then he or she can go to work on finding a job and getting back on track. “Most people are homeless largely for economic reasons,” Nan Roman, the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, tells The Atlantic. “If there’s not enough affordable housing, people who have additional barriers are not going to be competitive in the market and they’re going to lose out.”
DON’T MISS: Yes It’s True. Subsidizing Housing for the Homeless Can Save Them — and Taxpayers’ Money